Meliton the Philosopher (2nd or 3rd cent.)

Meliton is the presumed author of a short ‘Oration (memrā) before Antoninus Caesar’, preserved in ms. Brit. Libr. Add
14,658, the same ms. which also is our sole witness for the ‘Book of the
laws of the countries’ associated with Bardaiṣan and for
the ‘Letter of Mara bar Serapion’. Whether this
Meliton is the 2nd-cent. bp. Meliton of Sardis (Asia Minor), to whom Eusebius of Caesarea (Ecclesiastical History, IV, 26, 3 and 5–11)
attributes, among other works, an apology addressed to the emperor Marcus
Aurelius (r. 161–80) remains uncertain. Eusebius’s quotations from the
apology do not match the Syriac work. We may, therefore, be dealing with a
different work by the same author, or with a different Meliton, or the
author may have used a pseudonym.

The author strongly argues in favor of monotheism and rejects polytheism,
which he sees as an outgrowth of the veneration of heroic men. Freewill
enables man to discover the truth of the one God and to acquire eternal
life. Once enlightened himself, the emperor is expected to lead his people
out of error. At the end of time there will be a ‘flood of fire’ (māmolā d-nurā) from which, just as from the earlier
‘flood of water’, only the righteous will be saved. In spite of a few
biblical references, the religious message is that of monotheism, without
any mention being made of Christianity or Judaism.

If the work indeed was an oration, the addressee may have been either Marcus
Aurelius or Caracalla (r. 198–217), both named ‘Antoninus’, and the
existence of a Greek original must then be assumed. However, the author may
have adopted the genre of the apologetic oration. The work may then belong
to a slightly later period and possibly have been written in Syriac,
originating from Syria or Mesopotamia, perhaps from the city of Mabbug,
about whose early pagan cults the author seems to have been well
informed.